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Mr Cox, of Romford, Essex, and Miss Butt, of Walthamstow, North London, would often drive on successive nights from Essex to the Surrey car park off the A3 to link up with other people for “sexual activity”.

Mr Cox said: “The car park was a meeting point.”

A prosecution witness, Sean Glassett, told the trial that the area around the site was frequently plagued with perverts after dark.

But on the evening of April 2 last year things turned ugly when Mr Cox and Miss Butt, who had a stormy relationship, had a scrap in their car. This ended up in her receiving a cut lip, said prosecuting counsel Graham Smith.

She collapsing crying on the ground in full view of other night-time visitors to the car park.

Mr Smith said other men remonstrated with Mr Cox before Clarkson got out of his white BMW and kicked him in the face.

“It was a deliberate and violent blow which caused fractures to the bones in the face, jaw and nose area,” said Mr Smith.

“It was an act of retribution. The defendant wanted to give the victim a taste of his own medicine.”

Simon Stirling, defending, said his client accepted he had kicked Mr Cox, causing the injuries.

But he said Clarkson had lashed out to protect Miss Butt from further assault at Mr Cox’s hands.

Giving evidence, Mr Cox said he had accidently split Miss Butt’s lip and was comforting her when a man had approached them and asked the sobbing girl: “Who did this to you?” He added: “Then I felt this blow to my face. I was bleeding and I could feel a lot of pain.”

The jury heard that Mr Cox told police that he and Miss Butt regularly travelled to Wisley to meet strangers to “play” with there.

Under cross-examination, he said: “We’ve never been involved sexually with anyone else in the car park.”

But Mr Stirling said: “You weren’t being truthful when you said you weren’t involved with other people sexually in the car park.

“You have been involved sexually with people in the car park. Your girlfriend has been sexual with others.”

But Mr Cox replied: “We meet people there and go elsewhere. It’s a well-known meeting place.”

He insisted that the antics did not involve “full sex” and added that he did not mind if strangers watched him and Miss Butt kissing and cuddling in their car.

Mr Glassett, who helped tend to Mr Cox’s injuries, said blood had been pouring from the assaulted man’s nose “like a tap.”

Earlier he admitted calling Mr Cox a “lowlife” after he had seen Miss Butt in a distressed state and said he had only just restrained himself from hitting him, too.

Giving evidence, Miss Butt said she had raged at the man who had kicked her boyfriend. But he told her he had only been trying to “help her out.”